Alvaro Morata earned the praise of his manager after he continued to fill the boots of Diego Costa with a hat-trick in Chelsea’s 4-0 victory at Stoke.

having joined from Real Madrid in the summer, Morata has so far proved to be an able successor and Conte said: “I think Alvaro played very well and he took his goals very well, which for a striker is very important.

“I am pleased with the team also because it means we are creating chances for our strikers to take.

“I am pleased for his performance and pleased for the performance of the team. It is not easy to win away against Stoke and I remember we struggled here last season but won at the end. This game is always difficult.”

“I am very happy because it is not easy to win at Stoke.

“We deserved to win the game. We started well and scored early. We were in control of the game.

“I repeat, it’s not simple to win away against them.”

Chelsea revealed last night that Morata also wanted to thank the fans for changing the words of a controversial chant they had been singing earlier this season, which was intended to be insulting to bitter rivals Tottenham and their Jewish supporters.